29 July 2019•Update: 29 July 2019
By Barry Ellsworth
TRENTON, Canada
A Canada-wide manhunt continued Monday for two teens suspected in the slayings of three people.
Kam McLeod, 19, and Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, have eluded authorities for a week despite heavily armed Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) combing the wilderness, members of the Bear Clan patrol – an Indigenous security group – joining in and air support from the Canadian military.
The two British Columbia teens are wanted in connection with the double homicide of Australian Lucas Fowler, his American girlfriend Chynna Deese and University of British Columbia lecturer Leonard Dyck.
The pair have led authorities on a chase across four provinces covering about 1,700 miles (2,800 kilometers) and on the weekend, RCMP were concentrating on the small community of Gillam, Manitoba. The area is covered in forest, bush and swamp every bit as daunting as dense jungle.
Monday, acting on a sighting of the pair by a Bear Clan patrol member, police were concentrating on the remote community of York Landing, about 55 miles (90 kilometers) from Gillam.
York Landing is home to the York Factory Cree Nation and is only accessible in the summer by ferry or aircraft. It has a population of about 500.
The area is also home to dense bush that harbors bears.
“The area is very dense with forest,” said Bear Clan member Travis Bighetty, who along with his partner spotted two “tall, slender individuals” moving quickly near the York Landing landfill site. The two teens are both 6’4” in height.
“They fit the descriptions of what was given in the RCMP report,” he said.
Once again searchers must contend with unfavorable conditions in the Canadian north wilderness.
“It could be 20 yards in the woods – you wouldn’t be able to see them,” Bigheety said.
The chase for the suspects, who are residents of Port Alberni, British Columbia, has captured international media attention as the pair continue to elude authorities.
